think one thing that would be very helpful would be if they would simply pass a law that allowed the pentagon to allocate the cuts in their best judgment rather than forcing certain cuts on them. that would be one helpful thing, but i think the bargaining power almost requires that we allow it to happen before -- before anybody is going to get serious about their negotiation. i agree. it's a terrible idea, but it's maybe a bad idea whose time has come. >> laura you say it's not next to happen. >> right. >> you say there's no debt crisis. how would you describe the 16 trillion debt. >> so what i would say, look, there were estimates out there at the beginning of the year we needed about $4 trillion to stabilize the debt-to-gdp ratio. we're about 60% of the way there. we do need additional revenue increases or spending cuts over the next decade, but let me emphasize. over the next decade. not at a moment in time when the economy has 7.9% unemployment and is operating under its capacity to the tune of maybe six percentage points below capacity. this is a terrible time to do what needs to be done